State’s House members in party line split on Keystone XL vote

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday to force approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar-sands oil through the U.S. to Gulf Coast ports, from which it can be exported.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., with House Speaker John Boehner. House Republican leaders have made a Canadian project, the Keystone XL pipeline, their first order of business in the new Congress.

The vote was 266-153, not the two-thirds majority needed to override President Obama’s promised veto. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation with 60 or more votes, but again without the two-thirds needed for override.

While 35 Democrats voted for the pipeline, Washington’s congressional delegation split along party lines. All six Democrats voted against forcing approval. All four Republicans voted in favor of immediate construction of the $8 billion project.

“Our nation must face the reality of global climate change and take steps to reduce carbon emissions,” said Smith, senior member of Washington’s delegation.

“Rather than focusing on Keystone XL, we should be working on bigger picture investments in clean energy and energy efficient technologies that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels that hurt our environment.”

But the $8 billion pipeline project received an enthusiastic boost from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., fourth-ranking member of the House Republican leadership.

Obama: “Essentially, this is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market.” (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“People in Eastern Washington and across the country are tired of waiting,” she said. “At the same time, people are struggling to find high-quality jobs. They are watching energy prices rise at home. The Keystone XL Pipeline Act is the solution to create jobs and lower energy costs for Eastern Washington families.”

The Keystone XL project would create an estimated 3,900 temporary construction jobs, and about 39,000 supporting jobs. When done, however, the U.S. State Department has estimated it would create just 35 jobs.

(As a measuring stick, the U.S. Dept. of Labor reported Friday that the nation’s economy created 252,000 new jobs last month, with the nation’s unemployment rate falling to 5.6 percent.)

In the Senate, Democrats will test some of the points made by McMorris Rodgers. They intend to offer amendments that oil from Keystone XL be used in the United States and not exported. They will seek to require that the pipeline, a project of the TransCanada Corp., be built with steel from the United States.

The pipeline cleared one legal hurdle on Friday.

The Nebraska Supreme Court refused to block a new state law used to give a green light to the project.

The 2012 law allowed the TransCanada Corp. to bypass the Nebraska Public Service Corporation and get approval for the pipeline directly from the governor.

Four of the court’s seven justices voted that the new law is unconstitutional. Under Nebraska’s state constitution, however, “no legislative act shall be held unconstitutional except by concurrence of five judges.”

“Because there are not five judges of this court voting on the constitutionality, the legislation must stand by default,” wrote Nebraska Supreme Court Justice William Connolly.

The U.S. State Department still must complete an environmental review, which was held up pending the Nebraska court ruling.

“Regardless of the Nebraska ruling today, the House bill conflicts with longstanding executive branch procedures regarding the authority of the President and prevents the thorough consideration of complex issues that could bear on U.S. national interests,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told a briefing.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, an oil industry ally who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, saw it differently. “Today’s court decision wipes out President Obama’s last excuse,” Murkowski told The New York Times.

Obama has been increasingly critical of Keystone XL.

“Essentially, this is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market,” Obama told the Colbert Report last month. “It’s not going to push down gas prices here in the United States. It’s good for Canada.”